1. Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for detecting a failure of a battery, and more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for detecting mechanical defects of individual cells in a battery pack.
2. Description of Related Art
The foreseeable exhaustion of energy resources and resultant imbalance between supply and demand of energy have increased an interest in new renewable energy and green energy all over the world and endeavor to seek ways of conserving or saving energy. The EU and the United States plan to implement measures to increase the proportion of new renewable energy usage and mandatorily assign the use of new renewable energy. However, under the circumstances where the available renewable energy currently accounts for less than 5% of all energy resources, development of the energy resources should go with a study on the technology to effectively use energy by controlling storage and supply of the produced energy.
An energy supply device may be used in a vehicle driven by electrical energy, but recently, is applied to a self electric generator system in addition to the automotive field, such that applications of the energy supply device as an individual power supply source are being expanded.
The energy supply device may use a lithium ion battery that can be charged and discharged at any time, and particularly, the energy supply device using the lithium ion battery has a disadvantage in that a reaction of chemical compounds in a battery may be caused in an abnormal state, that is, a charge error, an excessive charged or discharged state, or a state showing an indicator used to measure a battery state having an above-normal level, and gas generated by the reaction may cause an explosion or a failure.
Therefore, it is desirable to develop a system and a method capable of rapidly detecting a failure or an abnormal sign of the energy supply device to notify a user of the detected result, and safely supplying energy by escaping from a dangerous environment through immediate repairing.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention, and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.